Institute of Physiology, Otto-von-Guericke University Medical School, D-39120 Magdeburg, Germany
Address for correspondence: Dr. Hans-Christian Pape, Institute of Physiology, Otto-von-Guericke University Medical School, D-39120, Magdeburg, Germany. Voice: +49-391-671-5885; fax: +49-391-671-5819.
hans-christian.pape{at}medizin.uni-magdeburg.de
Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci. 985: 92-105 (2003).
With a combined molecular, electrophysiological, and behavioral
approach we have sought to correlate conditioned fear behavior
with electrophysiological activities in the lateral amygdala
and hippocampal formation in mice and rats and to determine
the potential contribution of effector genes that are expressed
in the basolateral amygdaloid complex during the late phase
of pavlovian fear conditioning. Our data indicate that resonant/oscillatory
electrical activity in projection neurons of the lateral amygdala
provide an important cellular element of coherent theta activity
in amygdalohippocampal pathways, which may represent a nondiscriminating
neural correlate of conditioned fear. Correlated activity seems
to contribute to the formation of synaptic plasticity in these
networks, such as input-specific long-term depression of thalamoamygdaloid
signals and consolidation of long-term potentiation in the dentate
gyrus. Moreover, associative fear conditioning results in selective
gene expression in the basolateral amygdaloid complex, involving
molecular factors of structural reorganization and signal transduction,
particularly GABA function, supporting the view that the amygdala
is a site of neural plasticity and information storage during
formation of fear memory.
